The Religion of Pushism
Meaningless action in pursuit of an awareness of meaninglessness.
The universe has no need of my achievements.
The path begins01The foundation
In a world that constantly asks you to make decisions, there ought to be at least one path you do not have to invent anew each day.
You do not need to make sense of everything to know what to do today.
In a world that constantly asks you to make decisions, there ought to be at least one path you do not have to invent anew each day.
You have barely woken up before the questions begin.
What should I do today to move up the career ladder? What should I teach my child to make them smarter? What should I eat, what should I do, what should I improve about myself? Am I trying hard enough? Why have other people achieved more already? What am I doing wrong this time?
Simply living no longer seems enough. You must keep choosing the right life, arranging it in the right way and checking that it is turning out right enough.
We tire not only of the things we do. We tire of having to decide, over and over, which action is the right one now, and where it is supposed to lead.
You might ask: why create a religion when you could simply practise calisthenics?
But an ordinary workout can easily become yet another area in which you have to make decisions and achieve results.
Which programme should I follow? How many sets? How long should I rest? Why has my progress stalled? Should I change the workload? What about nutrition? What about goals?
Instead of being freed from endless self-improvement, you are given another self-improvement project.
You only wanted to do push-ups. Now it seems you must first work out how to organise your entire life around them.
It is precisely this demand that our religion removes. We do not ask the follower to become an expert in their own development. We invite them to walk a path that has already been laid out.
You may turn to faith in the hope of finding definitive answers. Yet there, too, you may encounter differing interpretations, instructions and accounts of the right path.
How should the words be understood? Whom should I listen to? What matters most? Is my faith strong enough? Am I acting rightly? Have I overlooked something essential?
Having the texts before you does not mean you will no longer have to choose between answers.
One Million Push-Ups does not attempt to offer a definitive interpretation of everything that exists. None is required to walk our path.
You do not need to make sense of everything to know what to do today.
To reach enlightenment, you must do push-ups every day and accumulate one million of them.
It is of no religious consequence how many repetitions you do in your first set or your last. The length of the rest between sets and the number of sets in a day are of no religious consequence either.
None of these details makes your faith more correct.
You may practise more often and advance more quickly. But you need not turn the search for a perfect routine into yet another problem in your life. There is no requirement to revise your programme daily, demonstrate progress or outperform yesterday’s self.
What is required of you is practice, not the flawless organisation of practice.
Nor must you reflect on whether your awareness of what is happening is sufficiently profound. Reflection is not a separate part of the required programme.
The teaching does not prescribe what you should eat, which career you should pursue, how much you should earn or what place you should occupy in society.
It requires no particular education, way of life, collection of achievements or approved worldview.
You may do other things. You may improve at them. But none of that is required for enlightenment.
Your social success adds nothing to your push-up count. A lack of success subtracts nothing from what you have already done.
You do not have to put your whole life in order before you are entitled to walk the path.
Work remains work, caring for a child remains caring for a child, and everyday matters remain everyday matters. But none becomes an additional examination you must pass to reach enlightenment.
We do not abolish everyday life. We abolish the need to turn every part of it into proof that you are moving towards some higher purpose.
Everything else may change. Plans may fall apart, beliefs may be reconsidered, achievements may lose their significance. You may not know what you want from life or what comes next.
But the answer to one question already exists:
What must I do to continue on the path to enlightenment?
Do push-ups every day.
This answer does not depend on your mood, your social standing or how clearly you can see your future. You need not search for it afresh every morning.
To reach enlightenment, daily practice is the only thing you need to take seriously. Everything else need not be invested with ultimate, cosmic significance. You may make mistakes, change your plans and fall short of your goals — without straying from the path.
That is why we are creating this religion: not to add one more area in which you are not good enough, but to offer a path on which you need not keep asking what sort of person you ought to become.
Every day, life asks who you should become and what you must do to get there.
Our religion does not require you to become anyone.
It leaves you one action that need not be justified afresh each day.You do not have to decide how to reach enlightenment.
That question has already been settled.Today, do push-ups.
02Doctrine
The Religion of One Million Push-Ups
Meaningless action in pursuit of an awareness of meaninglessness.
On the scale of the universe, humanity is an insignificant, fleeting detail. The teaching proceeds from the assumption that human beings are more likely to destroy themselves than to leave their planet and secure their continued existence elsewhere.
Our preoccupation with our own importance does not make us any more important to the cosmos.
Scientific discoveries, spiritual quests, social transformations and personal victories may seem important within the human world. Yet from the perspective of the universe around us, they change nothing fundamental.
We give our actions meaning. That does not mean they have any meaning beyond ourselves.
A person makes an effort, lowers their body, rises again and returns to the starting position. Nothing has been built. Nothing has been produced. They have gone nowhere.
In this sense, the push-up is the clearest possible expression of meaningless labour: there is action, there is effort, and there is no result of cosmic consequence.
Pull-ups and squats are kindred forms of the same practice.
We do not call push-ups meditation. We do not claim that repetition unites a person with the cosmos, purifies the soul or grants supernatural knowledge.
The practice does not disguise a meaningless action as something spiritually significant. It leaves it meaningless.
The sole religious purpose of one million push-ups is to lead a person towards an awareness of how meaningless and futile it all is. Not merely to agree with the idea, but to feel it through their own experience.
Not to discover a hidden meaning behind the repetitions, but gradually to realise that the repetitions need not conceal anything at all.
A million meaningless actions do not become one meaningful act.
Anyone who sets out on the path must do push-ups every day. The practice is not preparation for something more important, an auxiliary ritual or a declaration of intent. It is the path itself.
Knowing that push-ups are meaningless and doing push-ups are not the same thing. The teaching requires the latter.
Reflecting on the path is optional. Walking it is not.
A follower is not required to ponder the meaning of life, analyse their feelings or seek a philosophical explanation for every repetition.
You may think. You may choose not to. The push-ups count either way.
You do not need to understand before you begin. You need to begin, and to keep going. Awareness is the direction of the path, not an entrance examination.
The religion does not require a follower to become wiser, more successful, better educated, more productive or more spiritually elevated. They are welcome to pursue any of these things, but none is part of completing the path.
No book read, no scientific discovery and no profound revelation can take the place of a single push-up.
And conversely, a single push-up requires neither a book, nor a discovery, nor a revelation.
The more a follower practises, the faster they advance towards enlightenment. The path is measured not by the depth of their reasoning, the strength of their conviction or the years they have spent in the community, but by the number of push-ups completed.
According to the teaching, repetition brings the follower closer to an awareness of the meaninglessness and futility of it all. What began as a mere assertion gradually becomes lived experience.
While one person explains why the path is meaningless, another has already done twenty.
In our religion, enlightenment means reaching one million push-ups, accumulated over the course of practice.
We promise neither meditation, nor spiritual transformation, nor union with the universe. “Enlightenment” is the name we give to a completed path, not the promise of a supernatural event.
A million does not make the universe any more meaningful. But a follower who has reached a million has not merely discussed meaninglessness: they have lived it through a million repetitions.
Before a million, you are on your way to enlightenment. At a million, you have arrived.
What happens after three million push-ups? And after five? Are there further degrees of enlightenment?
The teaching has no answer as yet.
Not because the answer is withheld from the uninitiated, but because we shall think about that after the first million.
03Daily practice
You may think. You may not. The push-ups count either way.
What is required of you is practice, not the flawless organisation of practice.
Practise04Creed
The universe has no need of my achievements.Effort alone does not create meaning.Repetition does not make the meaningless meaningful.I do push-ups not to disprove this,but to feel it with every repetition.
05The Gospel of Push-Ups
We shall think about that
after the first million.
“How many have you done today?”
And the disciple asked the shepherd:
“What will change when I have done a million push-ups?”
“You will have done a million push-ups.”
“And what will the universe gain from that?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why should I begin?”
“You already know the answer in words. Now you must come to know it in practice.”
And the disciple placed his palms upon the earth, and lowered himself, and rose.
And he was where he had been before.
And the shepherd said:
“One.”
And the disciple asked:
“Shepherd, must I reflect while I do push-ups?”
“You need not.”
“And must I perfect my spirit?”
“You need not.”
“What, then, must I do?”
“Push-ups. Every day.”
“And when shall I reach enlightenment?”
“On your millionth push-up.”
“And what if I do five million?”
And the shepherd looked upon the disciple and asked:
“How many have you done today?”
“Not one, as yet.”
“Then the question of five million is somewhat premature.”
That question has already been settled.